Draft law focuses on children’s rights

Updated: 15:40’ - 21/05/2015

The Law on Child Protection, Care and Education would be revised toward better guaranteeing children’s rights.

“The law would focus on how to protect, care for and educate children, as well as their rights to participation following the international convention on the rights of the child. So, children’s rights would be emphasized more with an aim to change society’s view toward children,” said Tran Thi Thanh Thanh, Chairwoman of the Vietnam Association for Children Rights Protection, at a recent press interview.

The draft law, which is now titled the Law on Children, devotes 25 articles to specifying children’s rights, which are divided in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into four groups, namely: right to life, right to development, right to protection and right to participation.

Specifically, children would have the right to be protected from all forms of physical and mental violence. All acts of violence against children must be promptly prevented and handled.

The State, society and families would be held responsible for protecting children from violence and taking measures to prevent and combat all forms of violence against children in families, schools, communities, workplaces and the network environment, during the course of legal proceedings, and in the handling of juvenile offenders and rehabilitation of child victims. Besides, children would have the right to be protected from all forms of sexual abuse, prostitution and pornography.

One of the most salient point of the draft law is the provision increasing the age threshold for children.

Under the current law, children are under-16 people. The draft law now lifts such age threshold to 18.

According to Dang Hoa Nam, Deputy Director of the Department of Child Protection and Care under the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, children would greatly benefit from such an increase in the child age threshold as the time for them to enjoy incentives for juveniles would prolong.

Many experts agreed with Nam, arguing that under-18 people are those who have not yet attained full brain capacity, intelligence, sentiment and physical development and, therefore, need special protection and care from their families as well as the society and the State.-